Sherin Guirguis has dedicated much of her artistic career to highlighting the work of Egyptian feminists. The series to which this trio of images (see also M.2015.9.2, .3) belong was inspired by the life of Huda Sha'arawi, an early twentieth-century Egyptian feminist, nationalist, and founder of the Egyptian Women’s Union. Here, Guirguis depicts a watershed moment in Sha'arawi’s life in 1923, when she and fellow activist Saiza Nabrawi publicly removed their face veils at a Cairo railway station, a revolutionary act that precipitated the eventual disappearance of veiling among upper- and middle-class Egyptian women. These artworks reference the still-veiled women and one of the windows of the Bab al-Hadid railway station, where Sha'arawi and Nabrawi’s daring act took place. Born in Luxor, Egypt, Guirguis moved at the age of 14 to the United States, where she continues to live and work. She is a professor in the Design Department at the University of Southern California.
